Manhattan Beach city leaders don’t want the town’s offshore sand to be dredged and hauled north for a proposed shoreline replenishment project at Malibu’s Broad Beach.

In a letter to the State Lands Commission, the city takes issue with a homeowner group’s plan to potentially scoop up the South Bay sediment and dump it onto a shrinking slice of the Malibu coast, and “strongly urges” the agency to reject the request.

In other words: go pound sand.

“What I would say to the Broad Beach folks is, keep on moving,” said Manhattan Beach Mayor Wayne Powell, explaining that other sites off Southern California – including impaired waterways that could benefit from a dredging operation – may be more suitable sand sources.

“We can’t sacrifice our beach to help theirs,” said City Councilman Nick Tell, who last week voted with his colleagues to oppose the project. “Our concern is the uncertainty. … We run the risk that some unstable condition gets created that possibly causes our beach to erode.”

Manhattan Beach was approached in August by an attorney for the 124 Broad Beach residents, who have formed a so-called Geologic Hazard Abatement District to fund the planned nourishment project.

Broad Beach has narrowed significantly over the years, pushing the sea closer to expensive homes and prompting residents to erect a protective rock barrier. The shoreline north of Zuma Beach has at times also left homeowners at odds with public access advocates, who say they’ve been discouraged from using that swath of the coast.

The $20 million proposal will require sign-offs from various government agencies, and calls for adding 600,000 cubic yards of sand to the shoreline.

The group has been searching for a suitable site to collect sand and recently took samples off Manhattan Beach, said the residents’ attorney, Ken Ehrlich.

“Overall, we found good quality sand,” he said. “The chemistry is good. It’s clean.”

In an interview last month, Ehrlich said that if a dredging project were to move forward, the goal is to “go shallow for a greater distance” to avoid creating deep impressions in the ocean floor.

The State Lands Commission is studying the plan for potential impacts on public trust resources and also processing a lease application from the homeowners to retain the emergency rock structure. The California Coastal Commission, which would need to issue a coastal development permit for the work, is conducting its own analysis, Ehrlich said.

Multiple other agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also are involved.

Manhattan Beach, like other coastal cities, has been granted oversight of submerged lands by the state, but in this case the state reserved the mineral rights to the area, a Lands Commission staff member has said. That means the city doesn’t have a right to receive royalties from any dredging operation.

The City Council last week was united in its opposition to the project and, after a quick discussion, asked the staff to make its position clear. But at least Powell and Tell haven’t mentioned money as a reason.

Powell said he made up his mind after speaking with a retired aerospace consultant and city resident who has done significant research on the area’s changing beach width over the past century.

George Reppucci, who presented his findings this year at the Headwaters to Ocean conference in San Diego, said he believes the city’s beach may some day need its own replenishment due to changes in the way sediment is distributed onshore, and because of the potential effects of sea level rise.

“If our beach starts to narrow, we’re going to be looking for our own sources of sediment,” Reppucci said.

“They can take the sand from somewhere else before they take it from Manhattan Beach,” added Powell.

But Ehrlich, the residents’ attorney, hasn’t dismissed the South Bay beach town as a possible source of sand. “We look forward to continuing our discussions … and better understanding the city’s concerns,” he said.

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